I won’t show the pictures of the meat, but it was wonderful celebrating Christmas with family. We had veggies with butter, and cookies, and fruit cheesecake. I had a huge chunk of prime rib, and seconds. But it’s over, and there won’t be another feast until Easter.
Shredded Wheat is another of my staples, and I eat it by the box. Well, I probably buy a 0,5 kg box every 5 days, so I guess I only eat 100g/day, or 400 calories/day. I eat it straight out of the box, or if I slow down, I’ll get out the almond milk, banana, and blueberries. I almost never eat it for breakfast, since I make potatoes or have a veggie burger in the morning. I eat the cereal after dinner, usually just before bed.
My Chinese No-Chicken Salad is my go-to staple for filling up with nutrients, fibre, and volume with a relatively low number of calories. I add about 200 calories of Top Ramen, at least 300 calories from crushed almonds, and probably another 150 calories from my garlic sesame dressing. And, if you even bother to count it, the whole bag of cole slaw mix is 100 calories. I add chopped green onions, yellow bell pepper, and cilantro. So, that’s about 750 calories for the whole mixing bowl, which takes me about 1/2 an hour to eat in front of the television. Lately, I’ve been eating about 4 of these meals a week.
I could have easily eaten the whole package in one sitting, but I had the discipline and will power to make them last 24 hours. I used most of them between two huge Chinese No-Chicken Salads, which also shared a package of Top Ramen. Everything else was fresh greens (except for the 30g of sesame oil and 30g of sugar). This is how I lose about 100g/day. I also had two veggie burgers yesterday, and potatoes and cereal before bed. I did spin twice this weekend, so I’m not worried.
Interestingly, these almonds cans sell as cheap as bulk almonds @ $15 USD / kg.
I should really make this dish more often. It’s easy to make, and it’s so delicious. I really like brown rice, and the creamy sauce made with coconut milk and a little oil and butter. This should be a staple, but this is the first time in a month I’ve made it.
The low-carb crowd will convince you that “carbs make you fat”, and they’ll tell you about all the heavy whipping cream, lard, and cheese they consume. They’ll say that “a calorie is not a calorie”, and make it seem like you can eat a lot more under a low-carb diet. I’m pretty sure all the studies continue to show that “a calorie is a calorie”, and the non-statistically significant differences between a low-carb and low-fat (high-carb) diet depend more on adherence, and differences in actual calories consumed. Just to make sure, I checked with an online ketogenic diet calculator, using my particulars (age, weight, height, physical activity).
So, even if I starved myself to only 25g of carbs a day (vs. my current 400g/day), then I could eat 100g of protein, and 212g of fat. It calculates I’d only lose 75g/day. Where’s the metabolic advantage of a ketogenic diet? I already lose 100g/day eating 2 lbs of starch everyday. I’m happy with the 50g of fat I’m already eating. So why would I cut out carbs entirely? Because I was afraid of them?!
You’re not going to win a debate against Gary Taubes unless you can scream louder than he can. I don’t recommend you watch this video, unless you can stomach his droning on and on, and not letting Dr. Christopher Gardner speak. Apparently, he needs to get in every word during the hour debate plus Q&A to say the following (“carbs are bad”):
He ignores/discounts any other mechanisms of food addiction like the Pleasure Trap or the power of food reward like Salt, Sugar, and Fat. Or the additional hundreds of calories/day we’re consuming since the 80’s. All the researchers have it wrong (Occam’s Razor tells him so), or had poorly designed experiments. It’s all about insulin. There’s no other interactions, or feedback loops in the regulation of appetite and body fat. No one has ever made this simple connection before.
Finally, incredibly, he started to agree with Stanford’s Dr. Gardner that if everyone ate only whole foods, leafy green vegetables, whole grains, fruits, etc., the country would be lean. (What?! He’s making sense?!) But then he caught himself, and hastily added that we’re probably too far down the obesity road, and we’d all probably have to adopt ketogenic diets first. What a maroon dillettante fixed-idea nut.
Does this bread make me look fat? It’ll take over a week to eat them, so I keep them in the freezer. I make veggie burgers, and eat them on the couch watching Dr. Davis’ Wheat Belly talks on YouTube. I might contact his website and tell them that I’ve lost 30 lbs after reading his book. I won’t tell them I read it for comedy, and ignored his advice.
I felt like a veggie sandwich from Rubicon on India today. I brought my scale to weigh the fresh bread loaf used for the “whole” size sandwich. It weighed 225g, so I bought the “whole” instead of the “half”, which I’ll eat today between lunch and dinner. The 225g of bread probably has about 620 calories. That’s perfect. The slice of cheese (30g) in the sandwich is probably all the dairy I’ll consume in a month. The bread isn’t perfect either, but it doesn’t matter. The issue isn’t the gluten or the sugar in the bread, or the strain of wheat used. If you eat this for lunch and dinner, you’ll lose weight.
I put my immersion puréer to use making butternut squash soup tonight. Worked out great this first time. I’ll make a huge bowl of Chinese no-chicken salad for dinner.
Two Pounds of Starch A Day 